Rules only on paper, Bengal elections may turn Covid super-spreaders

With the assembly polls underway, there are fears that Bengal is going to see a spurt in cases and chief minister Mamata Banerjee has solely blamed the Centre for not responding to her repeated pleas to vaccinate everyone in Bengal ahead of the polls. The state administration is not considering a lockdown or night curfew at the moment.

“We are still lucky that the pandemic has not affected the people in Bengal much till now like other states,” Banerjee said.

Banerjee, speaking at a rally in Hooghly, claimed: “I have requested the PM to allow me to vaccinate all the people of Bengal ahead of the polls. I wanted to buy the vaccines and provide free jabs to people. But you (Modi) want people to die and did not allow me to vaccinate.”


The Bengal CM had written twice to the PM before the polls to allow her to vaccinate the people of the state. The PM has called a meeting with chief ministers of all the states on April 8. Asked about the preparedness, state health secretary Narayan Swarup Nigam said the administration is ready with all the required facilities. There are a total of 1357 ICU beds in the state while the total Covid-dedicated beds are 5,604.

The movement of CAPF personnel across constituencies in the five phases of polling still remaining, the rallies being held by political leaders and candidates in the districts and the huge influx of party workers and leaders from outside to the districts and villages have raised serious concerns about the spread of the pandemic as Covid numbers have crossed 2000 per day, health experts said.

Most villagers, candidates and political party workers were not seen wearing masks.

In West Bengal, 2058 new positive cases have been reported, according to a report by the Health Department on April 6.